The Natufian culture, first recognized by Dorothy Garrod in 1928, is one of the best recorded archaeological examples of foragers at the end of the Ice Age. The many unique material finds and social aspects of this culture found their place in different hypotheses concerning the emergence of cultivation in Southwest Asia that heralds the Neolithic Revolution. In the heart of the Levant, Natufian sites are early examples for sedentism that apparently led to changes of socio-economic strategies in this region. Given the quality and quantity of its archaeological record, it is better known than most other Terminal Pleistocene cultures across Eurasia. This volume, the result of a large, international meeting on the Natufian culture, brings together a series of new discoveries and studies of sites from areas not previously investigated, thus substantially enlarging the geographic scope of this culture along the north-south axis of the Levant. Field and laboratory research reported in this book was conducted by different teams of archaeologists, archaebotanists, zooarchaelogists, and other experts both local and international. This comprehensive book adds a considerable amount of new information to our knowledge. It demonstrates the ongoing interest among numerous scholars whose efforts widen and deepen the understanding of the Natufian culture and will remain as a source of data and interpretations for years to come, just as its predecessor that was published in 1991.

The Natufian culture, first recognized by Dorothy Garrod in 1928, is one of the best recorded archaeological examples of foragers at the end of the Ice Age. The many unique material finds and social aspects of this culture found their place in different hypotheses concerning the emergence of cultivation in Southwest Asia that heralds the Neolithic Revolution. In the heart of the Levant, Natufian sites are early examples for sedentism that apparently led to changes of socio-economic strategies in this region. Given the quality and quantity of its archaeological record, it is better known than most other Terminal Pleistocene cultures across Eurasia. This volume, the result of a large, international meeting on the Natufian culture, brings together a series of new discoveries and studies of sites from areas not previously investigated, thus substantially enlarging the geographic scope of this culture along the north-south axis of the Levant. Field and laboratory research reported in this book was conducted by different teams of archaeologists, archaebotanists, zooarchaelogists, and other experts both local and international. This comprehensive book adds a considerable amount of new information to our knowledge. It demonstrates the ongoing interest among numerous scholars whose efforts widen and deepen the understanding of the Natufian culture and will remain as a source of data and interpretations for years to come, just as its predecessor that was published in 1991.

Laying the Foundations, which developed out of the British Museum's 'Iraq Scheme' archaeological training programme, covers the core components for putting together and running an archaeological field programme. The focus is on practicality. Individual chapters address background research, the use of remote sensing, approaches to surface collection, excavation methodologies, survey with total (and multi) stations, use of a dumpy level, context classification, on-site recording, databases and registration, environmental protocols, conservation, photography, illustration, post-excavation site curation and report writing. While the manual is oriented to the archaeology of Iraq, the approaches are no less applicable to the Middle East more widely, an aim hugely facilitated by the open-source distribution of translations into Arabic and Kurdish.

In late summer 2017, ongoing Turkish excavations at the site of Teos in Ionia uncovered one of the largest and most important Greek inscriptions to have been discovered this century. It records, in thrilling and moving detail, the assistance provided by the Teians in the repopulation and rebuilding of their daughter-city, Abdera in Thrace, after its sack by the Romans in 170 BC during the Third Macedonian War. The new text, published here for the first time, is startling testimony to the ancestral friendship- and support-networks that existed between Greek poleis in the Hellenistic world, and includes (among other things) the longest surviving description of an honorific statue to survive from the ancient world. In the light of the new inscription, the authors offer a full reassessment of the epigraphic and literary evidence for relations between Teos and Abdera, thereby providing a comprehensive long-term history of the two cities, from the sixth to the second century BC. The book also includes major new editions of the 'Teian Dirae' (public curses at Teos and Abdera in the early fifth century BC) and the second-century decree of Abdera for the Teian ambassadors Amymon and Megathymos, as well as two further new texts from the sanctuary of Dionysos at Teos.

The Neolithic Cemetery at Tell el-Kerkh is the second volume of the final reports on the excavations at Tell el-Kerkh, northwest Syria. The 12-year field campaigns at Tell el-Kerkh yielded several unexpected archaeological findings. The existence of the oldest cultural deposits from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (c. 8700-8300 BC) in northwestern Syria was revealed. The investigations also revealed that several large and complex societies had existed from the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the middle Pottery Neolithic periods (c. 7600-6000 BC). One of the most conspicuous findings of the excavations at Tell el-Kerkh was the discovery of a Pottery Neolithic cemetery dating between c. 6400 and 6100 BC, which makes it one of the oldest outdoor communal cemeteries in West Asia. This book focuses specifically on this cemetery. It reports the discovery of over 240 burials and discusses the process of the formation and development of the cemetery. Initially used for traditional house burials in a corner of the settlement, the cemetery eventually became a graveyard that was physically separated from the residential buildings and consisted only of graves. In other words, burials that were deeply related to each house developed into an outdoor communal cemetery of the settlement. The Kerkh Neolithic cemetery was a precursor to the wider development of communal cemeteries in West Asia, and its investigation provides us with a deeper understanding of Neolithic society in West Asia.

Egyptian society is often said to have been divided into social classes, with the pat -people representing the 'elite' and the rxyt -people being the 'commoners'. The aim of this study is to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the role of the rxyt -people in Egyptian religion by utilizing both text and iconography. This includes exploring their identity, their participation in Egyptian rituals and temple festivals, and a detailed examination of the rxyt rebus.

Glass-Making in the Ancient Near East explores glass composition and production from the mid-second to mid-first millennia BC, essentially the first thousand years of glass-making. Multi-element analyses of 132 glasses from Pella in Jordan, and Nuzi and Nimrud in Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia), produce new and important data that provide insights into the earliest glass production. A novel method for data interpretation and presentation has been developed and used to characterise the glass types and to investigate questions of composition, raw materials, regional differences and similarities, and changes through time from the earliest consistent glass manufacture as represented at 16th century BC Pella, which is compared with Late Bronze Age Nuzi, to the Iron Age at both Pella and Nimrud. These compositional data are compared with available glass compositional data from the widespread regions of the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran and France, uncovering fascinating connections that, when placed in the archaeological context, reveal much about glass production, raw material sources, and distribution of finished and raw glasses. Technological innovations, including the introduction of natron-fluxed glasses, early decolouring with antimony, and the use of Egyptian cobalt colourant in Near Eastern glasses, are explored as part of this unique investigation of the critical developments in sophisticated and complex glass-making that laid the foundations for the establishment of large-scale production in the ensuing Hellenistic and Roman periods.

In Context: the Reade Festschrift is a collection of invited and peer-reviewed essays by friends and colleagues of Julian Edgeworth Reade, sometime Mesopotamia curator at the British Museum from 1975 to 2000. Its coverage is designed to reflect the breadth of the recipient’s professional interests, from Assyria and Mesopotamia in general, to the relations between Mesopotamia and other regions and the impact of nineteenth-century discoveries on the field of Assyriology. They include both syntheses and archaeological research, as well as reports on archival discoveries. Context is always crucial. Here is fresh work from which any reader can gain a new appreciation of the importance of the ancient Near East.

Masters of the Steppe: the impact of the Scythians and later nomad societies of Eurasia consists of 45 papers presented at a major international conference held at the British Museum in 2017 on the occasion of the BP exhibition Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia, both conference and exhibition being jointly organised with the State Hermitage Museum. There are 58 contributors and co-authors from 16 countries, mostly from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, but also America, Britain, France, Germany, China and Mongolia. The papers range from new archaeological discoveries, results of scientific research and studies of museum collections to reconstructions of social elites, the phenomenon of monumental tomb construction, and 'Animal Style' art. Most results are presented for the first time in the English language and they throw a completely new light on a huge range of aspects of the lives of Scythians and other ancient nomads of Eurasia, their horses, rock art and the working of precious metals, textiles and other materials.

This volume covers the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods, a period marked initially by the struggle of two city-states, Isin and Larsa, for control over the land of Sumer in southern Babylonia. In the end the city-state of Babylon, under its energetic ruler Hammurabi, intervened. At an opportune moment, Hammurabi struck swiftly, defeated Larsa, and incorporated the southern domains into his own realms, thereby creating an empire that for a short time united the lands of Sumer and Akkad. The inscriptions in this volume are grouped by dynasties and arranged in order by ruler within each dynasty. Further, the inscriptions are arranged chronologically within each king's reign. A short introduction for each inscription gives its general contents, place of origin, and relative dating. Also included are a detailed catalogue of exemplars, a brief commentary, bibliography, and text in transliteration facing an English translation. The appended microfiches contain a transliteration of each individual exemplar displayed in a format reminiscent of a musical score.

The Safaitic rock art of the North Arabian basalt desert is a unique and understudied material, one of the few surviving traces of the elusive herding societies that inhabited this region in antiquity. Yet little is known about this rock art and its role in the desert societies. Why did these peoples make carvings in the desert and what was the significance of this cultural practice? What can the rock art tell us about the relationship between the nomads and their desert landscape? This book investigates these questions through a comprehensive study of over 4500 petroglyphs from the Jebel Qurma region of the Black Desert in north-eastern Jordan. It explores the content of the rock art, how it was produced and consumed by its makers and audience, and its relationship with the landscape. This is the first-ever systematic study of the Safaitic petroglyphs from the Black Desert and it is unique for the study of Arabian rock art. It demonstrates the value of a material approach to rock art and the unique insights that rock art can provide into the relationship between nomadic herders and the wild and domestic landscape.

In this book the much-debated problem of political organization in Mycenaean Greece (ca. 1400-1200 BC) is analysed and contextualised through the prism of archaeology and contemporary textual (Linear B, Egyptian and Hittite) evidence. From the early 14th century BC onwards, Hittite texts refer to a land Ahhiya(wa). The exact geographic position of this land has been the focus of academic debate for more than a century, but most specialists nowadays agree that it must have been a Hittite designation for a part, or all of, the Mycenaean world. On at least two occasions, the ruler of Ahhiyawa is designated as LUGAL.GAL -'Great King'-; a title that was normally reserved for a select group of kings (such as the kings of Egypt, Assyria, Mitanni, Babylon and Hatti itself). The Hittite attribution of this title thus seems to signify the Ahhiyawan King's supra-regional importance: it indicates his power over other, 'lesser' kings, and suggests that his relation to these vassals must have been comparable to the relations between the Hittite King and his own vassal rulers. The apparent Hittite perception of such an important ruler in the Mycenaean world is, however, completely at odds with the prevailing view of the Mycenaean world as a patchwork of independent states, all of which were ruled by a local 'wanax' -King. The papers in this volume address this apparent dichotomy and discuss various interpretations of the available evidence, and contextualise the role of the ruler in the Mycenaean world through comparisons with the contemporary Near East.

This new volume in the Oasis Papers series marks the 40th anniversary of archaeological fieldwork in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert under the leadership of Anthony J. Mills and presents a synthesis of the current state of our knowledge of the oasis and its interconnections with surrounding regions, especially the Nile Valley. The papers are by distinguished authorities in the field and postgraduate students who specialise in different aspects of Dakhleh and presents an almost complete survey of the archaeology of Dakhleh including much unpublished, original material. It will be one of the few to document a specific part of modern Egypt in such detail and thus should have a broad and lasting appeal. The content of some of the papers is unlikely to be published in any other form elsewhere. Dakhleh is possibly the most intensively examined wider geographic region within Egypt.

How can the built environment help in the understanding of social and economic changes involving ancient local communities? Arab Settlements aims to shed light on the degree to which economic and political changes affected social and identity patterns in the regional context from the Nabatean through to the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. Settlement analysis is understood to be a crucial tool for accessing the local material culture and characterising the specific identities of the concerned societies. For this purpose, the author compares eight case studies across the Middle East, considering their spatial organisation over a long period (2nd - 9th centuries AD). For the interpretation of the remains, the anthropological concepts of 'segmented societies' and 'pastoralism' are fundamental, providing possible explanations of some spatial patterns attested in the case-studies. The idea of 'Oriental' settlements underscores the marked continuity in the organisation of the buildings and the use of space revealed on different levels between the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. Furthermore, the label of 'Arab settlements' is proposed in this context, highlighting the direct connection between social identities and built environment, with a direct reference to the development of an 'Arab' identity.

This is the first full biography of James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), Bible and patristic scholar, manuscript collector, Quaker theologian, devotional writer, traveller, folklorist, and relief worker. Drawing on published and unpublished sources gathered in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, many of which were previously unknown, Alessandro Falcetta tells the story of Harris's life and works set against the background of the cultural and political life of contemporary Britain. Falcetta traces the development of Harris's career from Cambridge to Birmingham, the story of his seven journeys to the Middle East, and of his many campaigns, from religious freedom to conscientious objection. The book focuses upon Harris's innovative contributions in the field of textual and literary criticism, his acquisitions of hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle East, his discoveries of early Christian works - in particular the Odes of Solomon - his Quaker beliefs and his studies in the cult of twins. His enormous output and extensive correspondence reveal an indefatigable genius in close contact with the most famous scholars of his time, from Hort to Harnack, Nestle, the 'Sisters of Sinai', and Frazer.

From the mid-20th century onwards, consolidated study of the merchant archives from the Old Assyrian trading colony at Kanes (Ku ltepe) has not only transformed our understanding of the social, economic and political dynamics of the Bronze Age Near East, but also overturned many preconceived notions of what constitutes pre-modern trade. Despite this disciplinary impact and archaeological investigations at Ku ltepe and elsewhere, our understanding of this phenomenon has remained largely text-based and therefore of limited analytical scope, both spatially and contextually. This book re-assesses the Old-Assyrian trade network in Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1970 - 1700 BC) by combining in some analytical detail the archaeology (e.g. material culture, settlement data, etc.) of the region both on its own terms and via a range of spatial approaches. The author offers a comparative and spatial perspective on exchange networks and economic strategies, continuity and discontinuity of specific trade circuits and routes, and the evolution of political landscapes throughout the Near East in the Middle Bronze Age.

The Sasanian Empire (third-seventh centuries) was one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching from Mesopotamia to modern Pakistan and from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. This mega-empire withstood powerful opponents in the steppe and expanded further in Late Antiquity, whilst the Roman world shrunk in size. Recent research has revealed the reasons for this success, notably population growth in some territories, economic prosperity and urban development, made possible through investment in agriculture and military infrastructure on a scale unparalleled in the late antique world. This volume explores the empire's relations with its neighbours and key phenomena which contributed to its wealth and power, from the empire's armed forces to agriculture, trade and treatment of minorities. The latest discoveries, notably major urban foundations, fortifications and irrigations systems, feature prominently. An empire whose military might and urban culture rivalled Rome and foreshadowed the caliphate will be of interest to scholars of the Roman and Islamic world.

This is a major re-evaluation of the life and legacy of Gertrude Lowthian Bell (1868-1926), the renowned scholar, explorer, writer, archaeologist, and British civil servant. The book examines Gertrude Bell's role in shaping British policy in the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century, her views of the cultures and peoples of the region, and her unusual position as a woman occupying a senior position in the British imperial administration. It focuses particularly on her involvement in Iraq and the part she played in the establishment of the Iraqi monarchy and the Iraqi state. In addition, the book examines her interests in Iraq's ancient past. She was instrumental in drawing up Iraq's first Antiquities Law in 1922 and in the foundation of the Iraq Museum in 1923. Gertrude Bell refused to be constrained by the expectations of the day, and was able to succeed in a man's world of high politics and diplomacy. She remains a controversial figure, however, especially in the context of the founding of the modern state of Iraq. Does she represent a more innocent age when the country was born out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, or does she personify the attitudes and decisions that have created today's divided Middle East? The volume's authors bring new insights to these questions.

For the Gods are the opening words or incipit of the first inscribed votive artefacts dedicated to the principal deities of the Sumerian pantheon. They commemorate the construction or renovation of cities, temples, rural sanctuaries, border steles, in sum all the symbolically charged features of archaic states belonging thus metaphorically to supernatural tutelary overlords. Girsu (present-day Tello) is one of the earliest known cities of the world together with Uruk, Eridu, and Ur, and was considered to be in the 3rd Millennium the sanctuary of the Sumerian heroic god Ningirsu who fought with the demons of the Kur (Mountain) and thus made possible the introduction of irrigation and agriculture in Sumer. Girsu was the sacred metropolis and central pole of a city-state that lay in the Southeasternmost part of the Mesopotamian floodplain. The pioneering explorations carried out between 1877 and 1933 at Tello and the early decipherment of the Girsu cuneiform tablets were ground-breaking because they revealed the principal catalytic elements of the Sumerian takeoff - that is, a multiplicity and coalescence of major innovations, such as the appearance of a city- countryside continuum, the emergence of literacy, of bronze manufacture, and the development of monumental art and architecture. Because of the richness of information related in particular to the city's spatial organization and geographical setting, and thanks to the availability of recently declassified Cold War space imagery and especially the possibility to launch new explorations in Southern Iraq, Girsu stands out as a primary locale for re-analyzing through an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological and textual evidence the origins of the Sumerian city-state.

Antiquities have been pawns in empire-building and global rivalries; power struggles; assertions of national and cultural identities; and cross-cultural exchanges, cooperation, abuses, and misunderstandings—all with the underlying element of financial gain. Indeed, “who owns antiquity?� is a contentious question in many of today’s international conflicts. About Antiquities offers an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between archaeology and empire-building around the turn of the twentieth century. Starting at Istanbul and focusing on antiquities from the Ottoman territories, Zeynep Çelik examines the popular discourse surrounding claims to the past in London, Paris, Berlin, and New York. She compares and contrasts the experiences of two museums—Istanbul’s Imperial Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—that aspired to emulate European collections and gain the prestige and power of owning the material fragments of ancient history. Going beyond institutions, Çelik also unravels the complicated interactions among individuals—Westerners, Ottoman decision makers and officials, and local laborers—and their competing stakes in antiquities from such legendary sites as Ephesus, Pergamon, and Babylon. Recovering perspectives that have been lost in histories of archaeology, particularly those of the excavation laborers whose voices have never been heard, About Antiquities provides important historical context for current controversies surrounding nation-building and the ownership of the past.

Ancient clay cooking pots in the southern Levant are unappealing, rough pots that are not easily connected to meals known from ancient writings or iconographic representations. To narrow the gap between excavated sherds and ancient meals, the approach adopted in this study starts by learning how food traditionally was processed, preserved, cooked, stored, and transported in clay containers. This research is based on the cookware and culinary practices in traditional societies in Cyprus and the Levant, where people still make pots by hand.Clay pots were not only to cook or hold foods. Their absorbent and permeable walls stored memories of food residue. Clay jars were automatic yogurt makers and fermentation vats for wine and beer, while jugs were the traditional water coolers and purifiers. Dairy foods, grains, and water lasted longer and/or tasted better when stored or prepared in clay pots. Biblical texts provide numerous terms for cookware without details of how they looked, how they were used, or why there are so many different words.Recent studies of potters for over a century in the southern Levant provide a wealth of names whose diversity helps to delineate the various categories of ancient cookware and names in the text. Ancient Cookware from the Levant begins with a description of five data sources: excavations, ancient and medieval texts, 20th century government reports, early accounts of potters, and ethnoarchaeological studies. The final section focuses on the shape, style, and manufacture of cookware for the past 12,000 years. For archaeologists, changes in cooking pot morphology offer important chronological information for dating entire assemblages, from Neolithic to recent times. The survey of pot shapes in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan presents how different shapes were made and used.

Citadel and Cemetery in Early Bronze Age Anatolia is the first synthetic and interpretive monograph on the region and time period (ca. 3000-2200 BCE). The book organizes this vast, dense and often obscure archaeological corpus into thematic chapters, and isolates three primary contexts for analysis: the settlements and households of villages, the cemeteries of villages, and the monumental citadels of agrarian elites. The book is a study of contrasts between the social logic and ideological/ritual panoply of villages and citadels. The material culture, social organization and social life of Early Bronze Age villages is not radically different from the farming settlements of earlier periods in Anatolia. On the other hand, the monumental citadel is unprecedented; the material culture of the Early Bronze Age citadel informs the beginning of a long era in Anatolia, defined by the existence of an agrarian elite who exaggerated inequality and the degree of separation from those who did not live on citadels. This is a study of the ascendance of the citadel ca. 2600 BCE, and related consequences for villages in Early Bronze Age Anatolia.

Der vorliegende Sammelband prasentiert die Ergebnisse des 2015 und daruber hinaus vom Institut fur die Kulturen des Alten Orients der Universitat Tubingen durchgefuhrten Surveys in Al-Khashbah, einem der groessten fruhbronzezeitlichen Fundorte auf der Omanischen Halbinsel. Zehn Monumentalgebaude, 273 Graber sowie weitere Bauwerke aus der Hafit- (3100-2700 v. Chr.) und Umm an-Nar-Zeit (2700-2000 v. Chr.) konnten hier dokumentiert werden. Dadurch ist Al-Khashbah pradestiniert fur die Untersuchung der Anfange komplexer Siedlungen und Gesellschaftsstrukturen im noerdlichen Inner-Oman am UEbergang vom 4. zum 3. Jahrtausend v. Chr., denn viele der bislang der Umm an-Nar-Zeit zugeschriebenen Errungenschaften, so zum Beispiel die Monumentalarchitektur und das Schmelzen von Kupfer, sind hier bereits in der vorausgehenden Hafit-Zeit nachweisbar. In der Umm an-Nar-Zeit setzt sich die Entwicklung Al-Khashbahs kontinuierlich fort, wodurch der Fundplatz zusatzlich an Bedeutung gewinnt. Nach den Ergebnissen des Surveys scheint die Kupferproduktion vor Ort in dieser Zeit aber keine Rolle mehr zu spielen. Aus den auf die fruhe Bronzezeit folgenden Epochen des 2. und 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr. sowie des 1. und 2. Jahrtausends n. Chr. gibt es in Al-Khashbah nur ausserst wenige Befunde. Erst im 18.-20. Jahrhundert n. Chr. erfahrt der Ort eine intensive Wiederbelebung, wovon insbesondere die alte Lehmziegelsiedlung im Norden der Palmenoase, eine kleine Siedlung im Osten des Untersuchungsgebiets, eine Reihe von Bewasserungsanlagen, mehrere Friedhoefe, Petroglyphen sowie zahlreiche an der Oberflache gefundene spatislamische Keramikscherben zeugen.

The Paleolithic site of Barda Balka ("standing stone," "stone to lean upon" in local Kurdish) is situated about 3 kilometers northeast of Chemchemal in Kirkuk Province, Iraq. Until recent years, the site was marked by a natural monolith of limestone conglomerate 3.5 meters high on a rather barren slope partly littered with Acheulean-type bifaces, pebble tools, cores, and flake artifacts. The site was discovered in 1949 by members of the Directorate General of Antiquities of Iraq while on archaeological reconnaissance in the district. In 1951, during a field season of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago under the direction of Robert J. Braidwood (which not only conducted the excavations at nearby Jarmo and Karim Shahir but also carried out wider geological and prehistoric reconnaissance in the extended Chemchemal Valley area), Barda Balka was visited and further studied by Herbert E. Wright Jr. of the University of Minnesota Department of Geology and Bruce Howe, then of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Wright and Howe returned shortly thereafter to conduct a four-day sounding campaign of trenching and localized geological investigations. This volume is Howe's final report of these investigations at Barda Balka.

Volume 1 of the series Arabia Orientalis presents the first comprehensive study of two Umm an-Nar (2700-2000 BC) burial pits from the UNESCO World Heritage site Bat in the Sultanate of Oman. They were excavated between 2010 and 2012 by the University of Tubingen. Each burial pit represents one of the largest closed finds of the Early Bronze Age in the region. Finds largely include beads and other items of personal adornment, as well as pottery and human bones. Detailed typologies of all objects are the basis for in-depth statistical analyses of the different categories of finds and the reconstruction of burial customs at Bat. Furthermore, imports and imitations from other regions including the Indus Valley, Iran, and Mesopotamia illuminate Bat's foreign relations and integration into the interregional exchange and communication system. The interpretation of the unearthed human remains conducted by Steve Zauner offer, not only the number of individuals, sex, and age of the deceased, but also insights into lifestyle, diseases, and stress of the people in the past.